Have you ever wished for a personal assistant that can handle all your digital tasks with just a voice command? Humane has thought of that and came up with AI Pin. However, a new device called Rabbit R1 has emerged from a startup at CES 2024. What is it exactly and what do you need to know about it? We will answer those questions for you today.
Rabbit R1: What Is It?
R1 is a custom-built consumer AI device running on a natural-language operating system. “r1 was developed to take a leap towards an app-free online experience by introducing an operating system that navigates all of your apps quickly and efficiently so you don’t have to”, said Rabbit in a blog post.
Similar to the Humane AI Pin, it can perform the tasks you tell it to via voice or via the display, which is one of the major advantages it has over Humane’s product. The product by Rabbit has been designed by Teenage Engineering, a brand that has also partnered with smartphone companies such as Nothing to help in designing their products.
Rabbit R1: Tech Specs
Available in a single orange colour, the Rabbit R1 comes with custom hardware features including a 2.88 inch touchscreen display, a push-to-talk button, a scroll wheel for navigating through helpful “cards” to interact with different activities assisted by LAM. It also has a rotating camera that’s being called the “rabbit eye,” an AI enhanced, motorised vision system.
Rabbit eye is capable of making video calls as well as executing some of the most “advanced computer vision applications”. Interestingly, the AI based startup claims that these features empower users to trigger actions more quickly than on even the most powerful flagship smartphones.
Unlike most consumer smart devices that must be managed on a smartphone, r1 operates as a fully standalone handheld device, with both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity options. It is powered by a 2.3 GHz MediaTek Helio P35 processor, 4 GB of memory and 128 GB of storage. It has a USB-C port for charging and an empty SIM card slot, which is factory unlocked. The battery is designed to last for a day.
Rabbit R1: What OS Does It Run On?
The Rabbit r1 runs on Rabbit OS. Rabbit OS is a custom-engineered operating system developed specifically for the r1. It has the brand’s Proprietary Large Action Mode (LAM) at its core and is the first OS made on an LAM. It works by first understanding complex human intentions, then feeding on human-oriented interfaces across all mobile and desktop environments on a customised cloud platform, and finally interacting with apps within the platform to achieve certain objectives.
Rabbit claims that it can do all the above without needing complex, custom integrations like Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which are vital for other operating systems such as Android and iOS. In other words, LAM fundamentally removes the need for users to download and use multiple apps on their devices and instead carries out the tasks on such apps for them.
The company will train rabbit OS to work with the most popular apps initially, followed by an experimental capability in the near future that allows users to train their own “rabbits” to perform specific tasks on niche apps and workflows.
Through a web portal called “rabbit hole,” a cloud hub where users can relay access to their existing apps to rabbits, users can enable different features and functionalities for their r1 device. Rabbit OS does not create any proxy accounts or require users to purchase additional subscriptions for their existing services, which leads to increased safety, security, and efficiency. In contrast, Humane AI Pin requires a subscription that costs $24/month, which is already quite high.
Rabbit R1: What Is It’s Purpose?
You might be wondering as to what exact purpose the r1 serves as our smartphones have already become smart enough, bringing the power of AI to our fingertips. While phones have evolved into all-encompassing personal entertainment devices in recent years, r1 is positioned as a standalone hardware portal, according to the company. It is designed in a way to help users ignore the distractions and handle their everyday digital tasks “smarter, more efficiently, and more delightfully”.
Rabbit R1: Is It Secure To Use?
Rabbit says that rabbit OS is built with privacy and security in mind. It performs tasks for users with their permission, without storing their identity information or passwords. All the authentication processes happen on the destination services’ login systems, so users have full control and freedom to link and unlink services to rabbit OS.
In addition, rabbit’s data infrastructure is claimed to be fully compliant with major industry standards, ensuring high levels of security and encryption. Users can delete their stored data at anytime and will also be aware of and have control over which types of actions are being delegated to the rabbits.
Hardware-wise, it does not have an “always listening mode,” and the microphone of r1 will not record unless the user presses the push-to-talk (PTT) button. r1’s rotating camera defaults to a position that physically blocks the lens unless the user explicitly requests it, and one can manually put the device face-down.
Rabbit R1: Price, Availability
r1 will be available for pre-sales starting January 9 for $199 (approx Rs 16,500) with no additional monthly subscription required. Pre-orders for r1 have already begun on Rabbit’s official website. U.S. orders will start shipping in late March while global orders will start shipping later this year.
The brand has already sold 10,000 units on day 1 of pre-orders. Now, the second batch of people pre-ordering the r1 will receive it between April and May of this year,
Rabbit R1: Our Take
Over the Humane AI Pin, we feel the Rabbit R1 is far more useful, thanks to more input methods and better control interfaces. The scroll wheel can help you direct the device to what you want, whereas you can only use gestures, voice, and touch, which can be a little inconvenient to use in a public space. Moreover, the claimed battery life is far better than Humane’s 4 hours of runtime on the AI Pin.
The price of r1 is significantly lower than that of the AI pin, and it also doesn’t require a subscription to run the services. The final decision regarding which one’s the better AI companion, however, relies on how accurately and quickly the devices respond to the user, and we cannot test that unless we go hands-on with them. So far, by the looks of it, the Rabbit R1 seems like a better deal.
As for r1 replacing the smartphones, that’s still a possibility that has near zero chances of occurring, according to us. It can definitely be an add-on accessory to your daily life, but with the amount of power, practical functionality, and use cases the smartphone offers, it is nearly impossible in today’s time to delete it from our lives and replace it with a pocket-sized AI device.